On Accountability: Red Sox Game 31 (Cleve 8, @Sox 3)

Today’s post will not be the usual game recap … my comments on Thursday’s festivities are largely limited to Dustin Pedroia — who homered and extended his hitting streak to 11 games — coming up as the tying run in the eighth and failing to convert on a 3-1 opportunity. (Vinnie Pestano threw him a great fastball there, then Pedroia chased a pitch that almost hit him in the chin.) When your best come up in the big moment and don’t convert, there’s not a lot to be upset about.

I do, however, have a little something to say. If you’ll endulge me.

Your gripe’s not really with Josh Beckett, you know.

Josh Beckett, to put it as eloquently as I can, is kind of a jerk. In and of itself, this isn’t a bad thing … I think it’s safe to say we all have friends in our lives who, if not simply showing some of those tendencies, are full-on ones. We accept them in varying degrees for various reasons. Beckett is no different.

Likewise, it is not difficult to understand the forces that made Josh Beckett this way. Worshipped from a young age, begetting an ego (think the story of his “PHENOM” jacket in high school), begetting the nearly $70 million he’ll have been paid in the majors when his contract runs out in late 2014.

Everyone probably has a favorite Beckett [bleep] moment. My mind goes back to the 2007 ALCS against Cleveland, when the Indians tabbed country singer Danielle Peck to sing the national anthem at Jacobs Field. Well, whether it was coincidence or gamesmanship, it just so happens Peck previously dated Beckett, who was tabbed to start a must-win Game 5.

Beckett, as he did all that October, rolled. And after the game, someone asked about Peck. Namely:

Q. Were you bothered at all by the fact that they had Danielle Peck sing the national anthem?

JOSH BECKETT: I don’t get paid to make those (expletive) decisions.

He said more, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s merely a reminder of the kind of guy we’re dealing with. Beckett is, at his core, the same guy he was all those Octobers ago. He’s a father now, yes. He’s a couple days from turning 32, not 27. He throws the baseball a little slower. But there are parts of our personalities that, for the most part, never really change. Some people are jokers. Some people are emotional wrecks. Some people are forgetful.

Some people are what Beckett is. And it’s the Red Sox problem.

Not yours.

Because Josh Beckett doesn’t owe you an apology.

No one should be terribly surprised to learn Beckett went golfing last Thursday at a point he should have been home resting a sore lat muscle that was ostensibly keeping him from a Saturday start. That Beckett missed that start, then stunk out the joint this Thursday against Cleveland, is somewhat irrelevant given the loudest among us deemed just the golfing worthy of excommunication from the land.

Regardless, Beckett golfed, returned and stunk. Confronted with questions about how his free time affected that whole series of events, Beckett was vintage.

“I spend my off-days the way I want to spend them. My off-day is my off-day. … We get 18 off-days a year. I think we deserve a little bit of time to ourselves.”

He’s correct, with the biggest flaw that a starting pitcher gets a heck of a lot more than 18 days off in a season, even including for between-start work. (Also, by my count, the Red Sox only have 17 off days during the season. How does the All-Star break work into the calcluation? Details, people.)

You may not entirely agree with this. You may wish he’d have said something different. Shown some contrition for embarrassing himself on the mound. That’s fine. You’re entitled to your wants.

But that’s all they are. Your wants. Not unlike those of a kid who wants candy from the supermarket checkout, you can slam your fists against the shopping cart and cry, but it’s probably not going to change whether or not your Mom lets you have a Snickers.

There’s a danger to thinking the loudest corners make up the majority opinion, but I think it’s safe to say notable swaths of fans and media have responded to Beckett’s week with the buzzword of 21st-century sports: accountability. As in, Josh Beckett needs to be accountable to us.

He has to explain his actions.

He has to apologize to us.

He owes it to us.

To which there is only one logical response: No, he doesn’t. He didn’t owe you that four years ago, and he doesn’t owe it to you now. That’s not how this transaction works.

And the Red Sox response to his actions ought to clue you into that.

Sports are full of hard lessons … that’s why in so many corners, they’re deemed this grand teaching exercise to build character. (Even when they’re just a nice diversion to distract from crappier events.) At some point, we all learn the hardest lesson — we’re not good enough to play at the highest level. It is a world in which we don’t belong.

And in which we aren’t. No matter how many times you refer to the Red Sox as “we” and “us,” it’s still “them” and “you.”

This can be even harder to accept because the walls between that world and ours are thinner than ever. Twitter allows direct communication with a growing number of the pros — the vast majority of whom are pretty nice, normal people. The Internet gives everyone a megaphone. Advanced stats and replays and press conference videos are largely available to anyone who wants them.

The business of sports is engaging you enough to make you open your wallet, supporting this entire ecosystem with the billions of dollars needed to keep the trains running. To give every mortgage refinancing commercial an audience. To give every pop-up ad a pageview.

That’s of course where this discussion is headed … Josh Beckett needs to be accountable to you because you pay his bloated salary. If you acted like he acted at your job, well, you know.

Let’s be done with the latter forever, please. If you were one of the best couple hundred people in the world at your job, you’d get a little leeway too. You’re not. I’m not either. If we were, and our job was an industry that had $6 billion in revenues a year, we’d be making $16 million a year, too.

But there is something to the first part of that. It’s just a matter of where your anger belongs.

The Red Sox on Thursday backtracked in the face of the Beckett story, saying that the righty was never really hurt, and that he was skipped so Aaron Cook could get a start. (Which, let’s be honest, is probably what actually happened.) Clay Buchholz, who was Beckett’s golf partner, lashed out at the whole thing becoming a story.

“That was so much blown out of proportion just because of the organization we play for,” he said, in part. “The one thing I said about Josh Beckett is he’s a professional. He’s not going to do anything to make him not be ready to do his job.”

They apparently don’t care. They’re the ones directly affected by Beckett’s behavior. The men who employ him and the men who play alongside him. Those are the only people to whom Beckett owes accountability, and pretty clearly the only people to whom he cares to be accountable.

If you’re more angry than they are, that’s probably a sign that they’re not the ones with a problem.

But that doesn’t leave you without recourse. And I’d like to think you know where I’m going with this.

Close the wallet. Turn off the TV. Take off the hat. It’s the only language they understand.

You may not want to. You may still love the rest too much to turn away because of one bad apple. You might not be able to imagine your life without the Red Sox, without Fenway Park, without Don and Jerry, without Sweet Caroline, without whatever.

The Red Sox understand that. They’re banking on it, literally. They know your love is eternal, and in a lot of ways largely independent of the current team’s won-loss record. Look at their actions, inside and outside of the business. The way they’ve spread their focus after a couple world championships. The sideshows sometimes outshining the main show between the Fenway lines. The way they staffed their team this season.

The popularity of teams in New England is not entirely cyclical, but it ebbs and flows because of just stuff like this. Fenway Park had tens of thousands of empty seats in the ’90s. The Bruins regularly sold 2-for-1 loge seats as recently as three years ago. The Patriots almost moved to St. Louis before Robert Kraft came in.

It changes because people start demanding better. Not with words, but with eyes and feet.

Josh Beckett is a guy paid to do a job, same as he was four years ago. When he did it well, he was beloved, same as Manny Ramirez was. He’s been the same guy, at his core, since the second he got here.

It is the Red Sox who let him put on that uniform, and who let him represent what they are in 2012 every second of every day. They must decide, and must be made to decide, how long to let that relationship continue. How long the promise of his talent, the same talent that’s earned him all those millions and all those years of attention, outstrips the rest of his picture.

You can help them make that decision. If you’re fed up, if you won’t stand for such callous behavior, let the Red Sox know. The people who hired a manager who doesn’t have the stones, for whatever reason, to make him stop. Who filled their clubhouse with men who, for whatever reason, don’t have a problem with this sort of attitude.

Not with words, but with eyes and feet.

I’m not going to tell you whether to be angry or not, or whether your anger is right or wrong. That’s not my place. I’ll only say this, now and forever.

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Jon Couture

Jon Couture has been covering the Red Sox for The Standard-Times since the 2003 playoffs, when management asked him the odd question, "Would you like to go to New York to cover the first two games of the ALCS?" Though he missed the memorable Don ... Read Full